From the title, The Called Shot, you get a pretty good idea that this is a book about the Babe Ruth home run in the 1932 World Series. And it is, to a point. A better description is the subtitle: Babe Ruth, The Chicago Cubs, and the Unforgettable Major League Season of 1932. But even that isn't quite right. This is really a look at America in 1932, the depths of the Great Depression, through the lens of a baseball season, and the only pennant the Yankees would win between 1929 and 1935, in the last strong season of then 37-year old Babe Ruth, and the pennant race that ensued.
It's about Babe Ruth and Rogers Hornsby, Charlie Root and Charlie Grimm, John Dillinger and Al Capone, Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt, Billy Jurges and Violet Popovich, the Anamosa Mens' Reformatory, Guy Bush and Kiki Cuyler, the "Bonus Army," Earle Combs and Bill Dickey, Jimmie Foxx and Lou Gehrig, Snap Hortman and Charlie Ireland, Bernard Malamud and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Judge Landis and Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, Lon Warneke and Hack Wilson, William Veeck and William Wrigley. There are so, so many stories in this book.
There are some errors; not all the stories ring true. Hack Wilson's 56-home run season is twice stated to be 1929; it was 1930, an error easily fixed by proper editing. The press of 1932 was not always worried about accuracy, and reliance on them probably leads to some incorrect statements. But there is such richness here, that a few misses do not diminish the totality of the work. It's a walk down memory lane to a time when there are few left alive to remember, and from the chaos agent that was the Babe to the loose laws of the city of Chicago, it was a different time. I think you will like this book.
